The scent of daughterhood
and who my mom was before me
Certain memories hold smells, and a particular one of my mom smells like cherry blossom lotion. She used to put some on in the morning while getting ready for work, standing in front of her vanity. A younger me was barely tall enough to reach the counter. I’d grip it with my gummy hands, leaning forward, watching her sweep it in small circles across her wrists. I’d ask her for a dollop of cherry blossom-ness, holding out my palms, waiting to a receive a sweet, comforting, pearl of light pink. When she wasn’t at her vanity, I’d pop open the lotion lid and drink in the fresh scent, sniffing it, and trying to memorize the curves and shapes of the sweetness with my eyes closed. I even named one of my childhood stuffed animals, Cherry, in hopes that the scent of the name would rub off on her too.
Memories are vague, yet somehow sharp, like a lingering fragrance. As I grow older, the more and more I want to articulate my mom, and the person who she’s always been. But, my memory only goes back so far to when she became a mother, and I’ve only known her as my mother. It’s like trying to catch a cloud with your hands.
When I was little, I knew I could trust my mom. She’d wake up early to get ready, put on her makeup (and lotion), dress up in a black suit and heels, drive us to school, drop us off, go to work, come pick us up in the afternoon, take us home to start dinner, and do it all over again the next day.
I knew that she loved me, because she told me so. She wrote it on cards she gave to me. She spent time to help me figure out what to wear to special occasions. She’d give me a hug when I was feeling sad. She knew when I was tired. She planned fun parties or activities for every birthday of mine growing up. She let me cry about mean friends or teachers from school. She listened to my problems, and she tried to solve them.
She continues to love me, years later, when she still says, ‘I love you’ on handwritten cards. She still thinks of things I’d like to wear when she’s shopping, even when I’m not there. She loves me even when she’s feeling tired. She loves me when she continues to listen to my plans and share her thoughts on them.
I knew she especially loved me when she told me it was okay for me to start taking antidepressants two years ago. She said that it might help, and that if it helped, I deserved it. And I know that she really loved me when, after some time passed, she said she was sorry for not saying things she could have to better support me when I needed it most. And in turn, I said the same to her.
I don’t really know what happened before all of that - before I was born, and before I knew my mom as my parent, and before she knew me as her daughter. Although I’ve known her name since learning my ABC’s, and like to think of her as my mom slash best friend - I’m not sure if I’ve ever truly known her for her name. However, as one of the few quotes I know from Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet goes:
“What's in a name? That which we call a rose, by any other word would smell as sweet.”
Naturally, as I’ve grown to know myself, I’ve grown to know her too, and I know any name aside from Julia would still make Julia just as sweet. It’s that cherry blossom sweetness that she’s carried with her that never fades, and that I’ve always wanted to be a part of and understand more. What’s in her sweetness? It’s her loving nature, her deep care for details, her tireless desire to try new recipes, her immortal radar searching for signs of us in the world around her, and her unconditional compassion for family and friends. It’s the feeling of warmth and laughter during the winter-y holidays, and it’s a cool breeze brushing your cheeks on a balmy, summer day.
During certain moments, I try to figure out who the-Julia-before-I-was-born is. I’ve asked my mom if she ever had any epiphany-like reflections or deep life anxieties back in her 20s (like me). Like, did she ever worry about being a good mom? Did she ever think about how daunting the future is? Did she ever feel anxious about who she wanted to be? Even now, I can see her face appear before me like a vision - her eyebrows furrowed, her forehead crinkling, and her eyes squinting, as if blinded by the sun. She shakes her head quickly. “No, no… I never really thought about those things. I just did what I had to do.”
When I left home for college, our relationship had been fragile and complex, like a spider’s web. We had unresolved tension and apologies. But, the combination of living farther from home, and living on my own for the first time, pushed me to immerse myself in what I subconsciously had known to be my mom’s way of thinking and navigating life. It felt like submerging myself in water. I started writing detailed, pragmatic to-do lists and drafting well-thought out emails; I tried overcoming shyness to ask thoughtful questions during university classes; I’d invest myself deeply into details and incorporate family passion projects into class assignments. I became unafraid of doing detective work and gathering information about programs and opportunities on my own, pushing my limits, having confidence that I’m strong enough. I just did what I had to do.
I tried to wear her everyday, like an old jacket that’s been passed down for generations. She gave me courage and strength to be ambitious and dream big. I felt close to her through texts and occasional calls. With every dilemma I happened upon, I knew I could always go to her, and that she’d consider and handle all my problems and feelings with care.
When I think about my love languages today, I’ve inherited most of mine from her. There’s a quality to my mom’s love that makes you feel completely understood and seen. Handwritten cards, homemade meals, intentionally planned itineraries, detailed research on topics that interest me - these are the avenues my mom has always traveled to get to my heart, hold me, and express that she deeply cares. In turn, these have become the same avenues I travel and try my best to make other people I know feel known, seen, and loved, including her.
The mystery about my mom beyond motherhood is potent. Maybe, that’s just a part of life. I’ve heard that there’s a science to motherhood and daughterhood, a scientific anecdote that proves knowing our moms is knowing ourselves; that we are a piece of her, a piece that’s been with her ever since she was a little girl. In a way, the fabric of our skin and hearts were sewn from the same hands and patterns. And in the end, that feels oddly comforting. In When the Women Were Drummers, Layne Redmond touches on this:
“All the eggs a woman will ever carry form in her ovaries while she is a four month old fetus in the womb of her mother. This means our cellular life as an egg begins in the womb of our grandmother…We vibrate to the rhythm of our mother's blood before she herself is born, and this pulse is the thread of blood that runs all the way back through the grandmothers to the first mother.”
This idea reminds me of a memory my mom often shares with me. She vividly recalls sitting on her own mom’s lap, leaning against her chest, listening to the rise and fall of her mom’s breath, and letting her mom’s voice vibrate gently right up against cheek. She says it was soothing - a memory of calm and peace.
That warmth transcends people and time. Perhaps, my mom leaned against my grandma’s chest, and transferred that strength, warmth, and love to me. My mom says that when I was a small baby, I’d gently rub her face to let her know I was tired and needed a nap. That skin-to-skin connection seems to have always run deep. My mom has always worn the weight of our needs like a second skin. I gather that she’s always been this way, putting other people’s needs before her own - her currency of love. Through a chain reaction of warmth and touch, I have felt connected to my mom and the love she’s grown up with all along.
There are a lot of answers I still hunger for. Am I everything she hoped for? Did she have to change who she was to become a mother? Does she have any regrets? Does she think I’m strong enough to become a mother too?
Those types of questions will continue to evolve and linger, like the scent of cherry blossom clinging to the air. But, knowing that we’ve always been a part of each other puts many of those questions I have to rest. Science tells us that the parts that make her Julia, and the parts that make me Lindsay, share a similar fiber and pulse. Sweet memory tells me that love like hers transcends answers - through the warmth of her lifelong thoughtfulness, her endless desire to love family to the fullest, and the strength of our hugs and kisses every morning. And I’ll hold onto that sweetness for as long as it lasts.
Beautiful experience reading this and getting to see momma the way u do🥹 sheeshter, im so glad ur writing exists